Living Wreath Tutorial

When Red Shoes was finishing up pre-school last year, I wanted to make his teachers a special gift.  They were incredible teachers, and I felt tremendously blessed that they were Red Shoes' first teachers.  I made them both a living wreath. Here's what you need to make one:

• Hens and Chicks
• Sphagnum Moss wreath base (I bought mine HERE)
• Wreath Pins (I bought mine HERE)

I had a planter of hens and chicks.  I always put my mother in law on this for me.  She can always find me some cheap Hens & Chicks at garage sales.  

The first step in making your wreath is to soak your wreath base in water. 

You need to be able to push the pins in easily

Find a little helper if you need. 

Here's what the wreath pins look like

Next, pull your Hens & Chicks apart.  You're not going to hurt them.  Go for it.  Then soak them.  You just need to be able to see their root system. 

 

Then you just start pinning their roots to the base of the wreath. 

Just keep pinning until it looks good.  You'll know when you're done. Here's what mine looked like.

 Before I boxed up the wreaths and wrapped them I printed out a care card for the wreath.  It really is very simple to care for. The best part? It just keeps coming back year after year. 

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The Ultimate Care Package

Remember my post on making chicken noodle soup last week? 

So, over the Christmas break I was sick...like I could hardly get off the couch kind of sick.  Luckily for me, my husband was off for the week, but I was in bad shape.  I think it was Influenza, but who knows...anyway at one point I thought chicken noodle soup sounded really good. But there was NO way I could have EVER made it. We were driving back home from my parents' house (I know I gave it to most of the family, wasn't that great of me...I really do feel bad about it).  Brian offered to stop by the grocery store to buy me some canned soup.  The kids were asleep and I didn't want to wake them, and lets be honest, canned chicken noodle soup just isn't very good.  I don't think so anyway.  I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had frozen some soup in October.  My fingers were so crossed!  When I got home I found it! All I had to do was microwave it for a little bit, and like that I had really good (and comforting) chicken noodle soup. That got me thinking...what an awesome gift for someone who is under the weather.  Here's what I came up with:

1. Make soup
2. Pour into a Ziploc screw-top container (I think mine held around 2 cups of soup)
3. Print off a "get well soon" label
For some reason I had birds on the brain so this is what I looked up under Google Images.  I added the wording using Picasa.

4. Cut the label out and slap some double sided tape on the back. Then just adhere it to a Ziploc container like this:

Place the soup in your freezer and the next time you get sick or you find out that your friend/family/neighbor is sick you can take it to them and make their year.  I mean who wouldn't be thrilled to receive this when they aren't feeling good? This stuff has healing powers you know. 

If you felt like going even further you could do this:

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Random Friday Stuff

We made these cookies over the weekend. If you are looking for a really easy, simple cookie recipe to introduce your kids to, this would be it.  I mixed everything together and then refrigerated the dough.  I sliced the cookies then the kids got to dip them in sprinkles.  They loved it!

I really like this song by Tenth Avenue North...it reminds me of some of the girls who  walked into my office for help when I worked as a high school counselor.  This is what I wish each of them would come to know. 

Need some last minute gift ideas?  If you have a little time (you probably don't) you could make a t-shirt tutu for the little girl on your list.  I've made two of them for Happy Feet.  Believe me when I say I'm TERRIBLE when it comes to sewing...just plain awful, so if I can do this anyone can. Really.  Go HERE to get the tutorial. I promise you the little lady will love it!

Here's some other great gift ideas I've come across on the web...

• Homemade Microwave Popcorn go HERE
• Birthday Calendar go HERE
• Jars with Chalkboard Paint Labels go HERE
• A cute gift idea for a teacher or employee go HERE

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Sunshine Basket

A few ladies from our community and local church brought Red Shoes a "sunshine basket" following his recent surgery.  It was such a thoughtful gift and it really did make him feel better.  The idea behind it is that the child gets to open one gift a day for however many days (9 in this case).  At the end of the nine days hopefully they are feeling all better.  When the backpack was delivered there were nine ribbons hanging out of it. 

Red Shoes got to pick one ribbon and pull that gift out of the backpack.  Red Shoes didn't quite get the concept of only opening one gift at first.  At first I think he thought it was a mean trick.  He caught on quickly though.  The first thing he would do each morning is run to the backpack.  We would tell him as soon as he finished his medicine (which he hated) he could open a gift.  It helped us out tremendously!  This gift was such a blessing to all of us. 

Notice the ribbons hanging out of the backpack

Day 1- Red Shoes loved these...just throw the capsules in water and they become little safari sponges. 

Opening up a gift on day 2

Here's what it was...place in water and it becomes a

regular sized super-hero wash cloth. 

Day 3-  A truck and school bus.

Day 4- A Bumble Ball.  just pull the string and it goes crazy!

Day 5- A Teddy Bear Soldier

Day 6- A Roaring Dinosaur

Day 7- Three Race cars

Day 8- A Sticker book, coloring book and crayons

Day 9- A Doctors Set

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